Until recently, when paramedics with the Henderson Fire Department needed to practice and test their skills with invasive life-saving procedures, their best shot was classroom lectures and practice with a small, unrealistic machine or mannequin.

This spring, that training took a far more realistic turn as paramedics spent a day at the Henderson Fire Training Center working through a variety of trauma scenarios that included smoke, stage blood, human volunteers and a state-of-the-art human patient simulator known as Sim Man.